The Dirty Streets of Heaven

  I didn’t have any answers. I felt like Woodward and Bernstein talking to Deep Throat in a Washington garage, learning that their story reached all the way to the White House. But I doubted that either of those two reporters worried that their discoveries might threaten not only their immortal souls but also the very foundations of the universe.

  I really, really wanted a drink. Instead, I went back to reading the extraordinary document that had been hidden in the atheist’s bible.

  But even as I began, in the days and weeks ahead, to believe more and more in what Habari and his colleagues were trying to do, there was a sticking point: to be certain the experiment would work (and it was going to be an experiment, an unprecedented one, since Habari said no soul had ever before been stolen out from under the noses of Heaven and Hell) this first “extraction,” as he put it, would have to be performed like a military operation, with care, precision, and perfect timing. That would not permit waiting for the first volunteer to die a natural death. Needless to say, I was not pleased to learn this.

  “You are our ideal candidate, Edward,” he flattered me, “but in the time we might wait for nature to take its course with you we will lose hundreds, perhaps thousands of other suitable souls to our twin rivals.” Naturally I asked him if they couldn’t find someone else like-minded who was already close to death, but he said no. Perhaps it could be done when they were certain it worked, he explained, but to begin with they wanted someone strong in mind and body at the end, someone prepared and fully understanding what was to happen.

  “But what about my wife?” I asked. “I’ll lose the chance to be reunited with her after death!” Now that I believed in life after death, I wanted nothing more than to see Molly again.

  Habari looked sad. “Even if you saw her, Edward, you wouldn’t know her,” he said. “And she would certainly not know you. The souls of the departed do not keep their memories, or at least, that is what we understand. Those who speak for the Highest are close-mouthed about it, but we do know that the departed do not simply go on as the people that they were, at least not in Heaven. Sadly, the same is not true in Hell. This is one reason a third way was needed. But we have a greater goal, and although I can’t tell you what it is, I can at least say that if we are successful in all we plan, it is possible that one day you and your Molly will be truly reunited, this time for eternity.”

  I mourned a long time over this, but at last, after much soul-searching (a phrase that means quite different things to me now, than it did only a short time earlier) I agreed to be the Magians’ guinea pig. Habari and I began planning my death….

  I skimmed through the next two pages, which was about how Walker put his affairs in order but without making it obvious what he planned. I’m sure he was not the first prospective suicide to have done such a thing, but he was certainly the first to do it while planning to scam both Heaven and Hell. My admiration for Walker grew as I thought about it. What he had done took guts, real guts. Like one of the early astronauts he had been given a lonely role to play, but without the potential for glory if he succeeded. He even referred to himself as an “after-naut,” a joking term he had picked up from Habari.

  Disappointingly but unsurprisingly, Walker had very little to say about what was supposed happen to him after he connected the hose to the exhaust pipe of his 7 Series BMW, except that he had been assured he need do nothing, and that Habari and his “people” (a pretty dubious term, I think you’d agree) would handle all the details. I couldn’t help wondering whether they had succeeded. Certainly Walker’s soul had gone somewhere. I had been an eyewitness to that.

  He closed with part of a poem by a writer whose name I didn’t recognize, R. W. Raymond.

  Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

  He signed the last page,

  Yours in hope,

  Edward Lynes Walker

  twenty-eight

  going to mecca

  I FEEL WEIRD admitting it, but the first person I thought of calling when I finished reading Walker’s astonishing letter was not Sam, or Monica, or even my bosses upstairs (although I’d have to, of course) but Caz. Since we’d parted, I’d been carrying around the memory of what we’d done together—how we’d been together—and I still couldn’t find a proper place for it in either my heart or my head. Thoughts of her kept drifting through my head like sun showers, and like sun showers I couldn’t tell whether they were a relief to my feverish mind or precursors of bigger, darker storms to come. What the hell, literally, had I been thinking? What was I doing? How could I hope to keep something like this hidden from Heaven?

  But, oh, dear God, how I missed her. It hadn’t been just lust, or even simply love—as if that could ever be simple. We had felt right together. We were twin souls separated by a million years’ history of war and hatred and treachery. If the whole thing hadn’t been so painful, it might have been funny. I mean, was there ever a more doomed relationship?

  I sure can pick ’em.

  But now it was time for your friend Bobby Dollar to force himself back to the issue that was literally at hand, the pages of Edward Walker’s confession-slash-suicide-note piled in my lap. Everything Habari had told Walker might be true, of course—clearly, he was no ordinary reverend doctor. But Walker still might have been duped, especially if Habari was working for someone like Eligor—which, after hearing about the powers Habari had exhibited, seemed increasingly likely. I had already established a tenant/landlord connection between the Magians and the grand duke; not exactly a smoking gun, but in this game, I find coincidences generally pretty suspicious. Heaven moves in mysterious ways and so does Hell, but they have their fingers everywhere and seldom by accident.

  Whatever my own speculations were, though, I had to make a report to my bosses and quickly. I may be a lousy angel and a grumpy, ungrateful employee, but I’m not a fool, and Walker’s story could represent the thin end of the wedge for some Opposition plan to short-hop each and every human soul after death. Even if it was something less dire than that, it was still way too big for me to be coy about what I’d found. Honor, duty, and the always-popular covering of my own precious tuchis mandated contacting Heaven as quickly as possible.

  Not because I was going to tell her any of this, but just because I had to do something about the ache I’ve already mentioned, I called Caz on the emergency number she’d given me. I was close to blurting out actual feelings but had a sudden, frightening image of a Heavenly court martial playing back the voicemail while they all shimmered ominously at me, so I left her a bloodless message to the effect that I wanted to speak to her, then headed across town toward the company office to make my report.

  I tried Sam’s phone, too, but only got his voicemail. I hoped that meant Monica and the others no longer needed to sit vigil by his bedside answering his calls. On top of all my other worries I felt like a total jerk that I couldn’t visit my best friend, but there was no sense borrowing trouble. I rang The Compasses and had a brief chat with Chico. To my relief, he reported that Sam was out of danger, which meant he was not going to have to get another body. Getting a new one is an iffy thing at the best of times—lots of recuperation and a recovery pattern that, though faster, isn’t that different from a stroke victim’s. Of course, after Leo’s death on what I thought of as the Heavenly operating table, I have a deeper distrust of the process than most of my peers.

  “What about me?” Chico asked as I was trying to wrap up the call. “No, ‘How’s it going, buddy?’ No, thanks for saving your scrawny culo the other night? While getting the shit kicked out of my bar by some kind of crazy old-school demonic motherfucker? Chupa mi verga, Dollar!” Chico thinks he’s Mexican, and not just in appearance—he thinks his soul is Mexican. Maybe it is, but I don’t know how being part of La Raza can survive death and angelic transformation. Still, why argue with a grumpy bastard who keeps an automatic shotgun full of silver salts within arm’s rea
ch?

  “Sorry, man. What can I say? I’m in your debt. I didn’t know you were that badass.”

  “Only when I need to be.” He sounded mollified. “Anyway, it’s tough out there. You take care, BD.”

  “Trying my best, hombre.”

  I parked around the block in case Eligor’s men were staking out our office, then slipped in over the fence from the courtyard of the office building next door. Alice’s desk was next to a window. She watched me climb, cling, then awkwardly drop as if I were a very unimpressive clown performing at a child’s party. “Not getting enough exercise, Dollar?” she asked after I mounted the stairs and stumbled in.

  I was still puffing a little as I dropped into a chair to examine the hole I’d just torn in my pants. I was running out of jeans, and I was going to have to start wearing something sturdier, like those ugly tactical khakis. “No, it’s just that visiting you always brings out the swashbuckling romantic in me, Alice.”

  She shook her head. “Save the bullshit. I got a lousy chimichanga from GoGo Burrito and it’s backing up on me. I’m going home early. What do you want?”

  “I need to send a p-mail. Private, too. I have to do it myself.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, you really are a man of action, Dollar. I’m all aflutter…but that might just be that chimichanga.” She gestured vaguely toward the inner office door. “You know where it is. I’m going to lock up, and you can let yourself out. Do not try to sleep here.”

  “I’m not homeless!”

  “You will be if you keep gouging your expense account for fancy motels.”

  “Fancy? These are the kind of places that make you use the last guest’s soap.”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to whatever she had to finish before she gave herself the rest of the day off.

  Sam always calls sending a private prayer-mail “going to Mecca,” not because you’re surrounded by other pilgrims but because the process itself is less like one of those baroque churches full of golden clouds and plaster cherubs and more like that big block of stone that all the Islamic faithful go to see. The room is small and has no windows. The only thing in it is a standard wooden desk, and the only chair in the room is facing it instead of behind it. On top of the desk is a big black blotter like you’d see in an insurance office, and sitting unceremoniously on top of that is a cube of clear crystal about a foot and a half square. At least I always assumed it’s crystal—maybe it’s some cheap glass thing they bought in one of those home decorator stores. It wouldn’t shock me. One thing about my bosses, at least in their operations here on Earth: they’re more into making things work than making things look good.

  I sat in front of the cube and composed myself. I had my eyes shut, because if they were open when the light of Heaven came I’d have been seeing a shiny green cube in front of everything for the next half hour. I mean, it really scorches your optic nerves. So I waited. I saw the first great flash against my eyelids and then the light dimmed down to a healthier level, and I opened up.

  What’s the light of Heaven look like on earth? Like sunlight streaming through the clouds in the tackiest garage sale painting you ever saw. Really, it’s so beautiful it’s embarrassing. No subtlety whatsoever.

  A voice spoke. As far as I know it was only in my head, one of those sweet, indefinable angel voices that could be either male or female.

  God loves you, Angel Doloriel. The question, “So why are you bothering us?” was, as always, only implied.

  I spoke the formula for a secure report, then described what I had just found and read. When I was finished, I took the envelope out of my pocket and showed it to the cube, then held the pages up one after another in front of that giant paperweight full of clouds and bright sunlight. When I’d finished the sweetly androgynous voice said, Your report has been received.

  I was just getting up to go when the voice came again. Archangel Temuel will speak to you. I was a little surprised.

  Doloriel, I’ve just seen your message. My supervisor was nothing but a voice coming from the brilliant clouds. This makes it all the more important that you attend the summit conference, which has now been officially decreed. Be my eyes and ears.

  Which was a weird thing to say. Because the summit conference was going to be as stuffed with angels as a clown car full of guys in big shoes. Did Temuel mean he wanted me to be his own private source? I could understand that, I guess—anybody who’s ever worked in a bureaucracy could—but coupled with his remark about my misremembering his Clarence comment, it unsettled me a bit.

  I didn’t reveal that, of course. “Just give me the details.”

  It starts this Friday. You won’t have to travel far. It will be at the Ralston Hotel, in your city.

  I probably looked a little surprised. I don’t know if they can actually see us through the heaven box, but I explained my reaction anyway. “Right here in Jude? Not in, I don’t know, Vatican City or something? Vegas? I know those Hell guys love to convention in Vegas.”

  Perhaps because the…problem began in San Judas, our superiors and the Opposition both think it would be the best place to discuss the issues. Did he sound a little worried or was he just irritated with me for asking questions? And as you can guess, Angel Doloriel, there are many issues, crucially important issues, and your new report only adds fuel to a fire that is already burning. Can I count on your focus and cooperation?

  The Bobby Dollar credo: When speaking with management, answer anything that could have more than one meaning as though the obvious one is the only one you noticed. “Of course, Archangel. Thank you for your confidence in me.”

  You’re welcome. And thank you for your hard work on the Walker case. I’m sure your report will cause quite a stir in the highest circles.

  And with those even more ambiguous words he was gone. The cube mellowed to a faint golden glow, then even that vanished, but not before something about the unearthly quality of the flaring light caught my attention. I couldn’t help thinking about Habari’s astonishing display of power, of how Edward Walker had talked about the reverend doctor’s hand glowing like a magnesium flare when he opened a Zipper in that hospital. Had it been the same brilliant, ineffable light I had just closed my eyes against? Could Habari somehow be connected to Heaven after all? Or could Hell mimic that very, very recognizable radiance? I supposed it was possible—after all, that was the Devil’s traditional schtick, to seem fair but be foul, or something like that. But then again, it was a living mortal who had been tricked, so maybe they hadn’t needed to work all that hard. I suddenly wondered if someone like me could perform that trick, too—if any angel could do it.

  I left the office doors locked behind me and clambered back over the fence into the courtyard of the little office complex next door. When my feet hit the ground, I turned and found myself about a foot away from a grinning, corpselike face. I had my new automatic from Orban out and my finger on the trigger before I realized it was my dancing acquaintance, Mr. Fox.

  “Jesus!” I said, taking a step back and putting the gun in my pocket. I hate to take religious names in vain—it’s frowned on for guys in my line of work—but sometimes it just jumps out. “What are you doing sneaking up on me? I almost shot you!”

  “No sneaking, Dollar man! Saw you climbing over the fence and thought we must have a chitter-chat.” He laughed and did a quick time step. Only then did it occur to me to look around the offices facing the courtyard. Only one employee sat at a window desk, a young black woman, but she was staring at me and the paper-white Asian guy with alarm. She was also fumbling blindly for her phone.

  “Come on.” I headed for the way out. “Tell your story walking. I think that lady’s calling the cops.”

  “No fear. Foxy has friends on the police. Friends everywhere.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re so popular. I’m not.”

  We reached my car, and he hopped into the passenger seat without being asked. He looked around appreciatively, like I was his prom dat
e and this was the limo. “You don’t have your old car anymore, Mister Bobby.”

  “No. Where can I drop you?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said, just brimming with good cheer as I put it in drive. “When we going to do some more business, Mister BD? Only two of our auction crowd shot dead—many more to choose from!”

  I weighed whether there was anything to be gained from further exploration in that direction, but after seeing how quickly and savagely Eligor had jumped on our “secret auction,” I didn’t really want to put any more people in harm’s way.

  “I think I’m out of the artifact-selling business.”

  He gave me a look of comical sorrow. “Truly? But there are many adventures yet to be had! Are you certain? I could conduct things in a more discreet manner—only one buyer at a time, strictly vetted by yours truthfully, Foxy Foxy!”

  I was beginning to wonder if this guy was going to be popping up unexpectedly for the rest of my life. “No. Seriously, no. I don’t want to sell anything.”

  “Pull over here,” he said abruptly. We were in the middle of a street a few blocks from Beeger Square. “Think it over, Dollar Bob. There are oh-so many ways to do this!”

  Frustration momentarily overcame discretion. “Look, I don’t have it. I don’t have the feather. I never had it, but I was trying to find out what everyone thought I had. Now I know, so I don’t need any more buyers.” I pulled over into a bus stop in front of Survival of the Fittest. Various people on running, spinning, and rowing machines inside watched as the door swung open and Fox popped out in all his pale, pirouetting splendor. He was laughing again but his eyes were sharp, and his affect was the most serious I’d seen from him. “Ah, don’t try to fool the Fox, D-man. Foxy knows better. Do you think I put my so-good reputation on the line, if I didn’t know for certain you had the feather? I smelled it on you.”